


Fallout

by sharkygal



Category: Boondock Saints (1999 2009)
Genre: Drama, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Post-First Movie, Pre-Canon, Twincest, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-04
Updated: 2010-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:21:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkygal/pseuds/sharkygal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cinema and the development of young Irish road warriors. "It isn't only art -- it's a religious experience."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallout

**Disclaimer** : The boys and their father belong to Troy Duffy, and will be returned only a little worse for the wear. Mad Max belongs to Image Entertainment, as far as I can tell.  
 **Note** : Written for the Worst Case Scenario Multi-Fandom Challenge.

 

Saturday night when they're ten, and _Mad Max_ plays double-bill with _Death Wish_ at the ramshackle old drive-inn a kilometer or so from their neighborhood. No car, of course, but they've a pair of rusty, half-banjaxed Schwinns, which is all the vehicle they're going to get 'til Jesus himself floats down from the sky and changes cow shite to car keys (least, that's what Ma always says).

They lie on a scraggly patch of weeds at the front, where the swing set is, if you can call it that since there's no swings -- only a bit of chain left hanging that Murphy climbs on between the features or during a romance scene. "Quit playin' like bloody Tarzan and sit down already, ya fuckin' ape," Connor shouts at him. "The film's about to start."

"Yes, Ma," Murphy sneers automatically, but he comes and sits anyway, because he never likes to miss the beginning.

The next ninety minutes contain no swinging from chains or running to pee in the bushes or even talking. They absently stuff crisps in their mouths that they don't taste, and don't exist outside of the watching, staring rapt without hardly blinking their eyes. Flickering light from on-screen explosions reflects off their awe-slackened faces. It isn't only art -- it’s a religious experience.

"That," Murphy proclaims, when the credits are rolling, "was bloody _amazing_!" and Connor laughs and slaps him in the head, which means he agrees.

They chatter the whole way home, rehashing all the best parts and feeding each other's excitement. "That Max bloke," Connor muses, while they're pushing their bikes up the hill where their building is. "He was quite a hard bastard, wasn't he? The way he took on all those guys on their motorbikes."

"Wish we had one of them things right now," Murphy pants when they hit the steepest bit. "Wouldn't have to push it everywhere, not like these pieces of shite."

Connor grins like he isn't sweating, too. "What, you aren't enjoying the lovely view?"

"You've got to be fuckin' joking," Murphy wrinkles his face up in abject disdain. A two-bulb goes streaking by, all blurred black and white and flashing lights, siren blaring. They stop to watch it go, and follow its path with their eyes.

The siren's loud enough to linger, even when they can't see it anymore. Connor tears himself away, looks at his brother. "C'mon," he says, and nudges Murphy with his shoulder. "Ma's gonna eat our heads off already, for bein' late."

They walk the last leg and don't talk, each lost in thoughts that circle 'round and 'round Australian wastelands. The air crackles with possibility.

Tomorrow, they'll make a bomb shelter.

o o o

Their first is temporary, built out of blankets, pillows, and chairs in their bedroom, mattresses shoved aside to clear way. Construction takes forty-some minutes, Murphy's design that Connor makes work. Finished, it doesn't seem like much, but it's radioactive gold to their eyes.

A bunker, after all, is an essential part to their new game, one that's better than anything else they used to have. Pirates or spies or jet pilots -- better than Rambo, even, which they played every day for a whole month at the beginning of summer.

"Look out, the bomb's been dropped!" Murphy points at the biggest water stain on their ceiling, shaped half like Russia and near the size. "Quick, we need cover before it hits!"

"There's only a few seconds, c'mon!" Connor yells, grabbing his brother by the collar, and yanks him along at a gallop. They dive, skid into the shelter at the last moment, and the ghost wave of destruction nips at their heels, deafening.

Then it's all quiet. They lay in the dark on their bellies, hands and knees stinging from carpet burns, ears sharp. Listening for the world to end. "How long 'til it's safe to come out, you think?" Murphy whispers.

Hot as hell shut in, under all those blankets. Hot as hell anyway, with the afternoon sun beating down on their window, livid and burning orange through the stained sheet Ma nailed up for drapes. Sweat shines on Connor's forehead, creased in thought. "A real long time," he says finally, scratches at his palms. "Two, three days. There'll be lots of danger now, from wild dogs and motorbike gangs."

"And mutants," Murphy adds. He likes the old monster films they show late at night, always some creature or another gone fucking huge from radiation.

"Aye, and mutants," Connor takes the idea and runs with it, eyes bright, excited; leaps off Murphy's thought, and weaves it sharper, better, as he always does. "They'll be out roaming. Great bloody bands of 'em, looking for water and petrol, ready to kill for 'em if that's what it takes. Everyone will be fighting to survive," his face is serious, staring deep into his brother's. "We'll have to stay together, if we're going to make it."

"Fuck yeah," Murphy's heart is pounding. He can see the armies of snarling dogs and snarling men, bikers, mutants with glow-in-the-dark eyes. Sparks are practically coming off him, he's so charged up. "We'll take 'em all."

"All right," Connor breathes, and slides his forearms underneath himself, raising just barely onto hands and knees. "On my count, come out firing. Ready?" Murphy nods, eager-eyed, mimicking the position. Connor shoots him a grin, then gets back to business. "Okay...go!" and they scramble out, ripping parts of the bomb shelter that catch on their shoes and shoulders along with them. It's okay, though, since it wasn't more than temporary (and besides, it's only blankets they can re-hang anyway).

The battle is epic -- motherfuckers on motorbikes and slavering, irradiated beasts coming from all sides. Connor has each hand as a gun, and he cuts down whole rows of the bastards, barreling out to the living room and leaping over the sofa like Bruce Lee, yelling for them to die, fuckin' die.

It looks so cool, Murphy has to dive into somersaults across the whole fucking room, just to keep from getting upstaged. Nearly scrapes half his face off on the threadbare rug, but he doesn't feel an ounce, high as a bloody jet off adrenaline. The look of stoic appreciation from Connor makes it that much sweeter.

They fight their way through post-nuclear deserts until Ma comes home from work early, and threatens to drown them in a puddle of horse piss, if they don't quit behaving like the little fucking barbarians their Da's godforsaken gene pool's swimming full of and clean up this bloody mess.

And so comes the destruction of their first shelter.

o o o

The second one is for real.

No more blankets and chairs in their bedroom, no more playing pretend. They're fourteen now. Murphy's almost forgotten Mad Max, honestly, up to his ears as he is thinking about more important things. Like if he's ever going to conjugate in Latin properly, and when's the next time they can scam Bill Flaherty's older brother into getting them a few bevvies.

It's Connor who remembers, as always. Like an elephant, never forgets a fucking thing. Murphy always forgets.

Late August night, them lying in the quiet and the dark. Murphy's almost asleep, when Connor comes out with it, right out of the fucking blue. "You know that field, Murph?"

"World's full of fields," he mumbles into his pillow. "Which one?"

"One we used t' play footie in."

Scrubby little scrap of crabgrass just outside the city, hardly worth the name. All the kids in their neighborhood used to go there, 'til somebody got ambitious and cleared out an abandoned lot closer by, made a real park for them. Tatty old place's been abandoned to thistles since then. "You woke me up in the middle of the fuckin' night to chat about a stupid fuckin' patch of weeds?" Murphy can't even get his head around the concept.

"Course not," dripping contempt, like it's him that's gone crazy. "I'm talkin' about what's in that field."

Real curiosity pokes its head up finally, and so does Murphy, rubbing his eyes. "What's that?"

Connor's eyes shine like wet stones. "A bomb shelter," he says. "Soon as we put it there."

A fucking bomb shelter. Murphy snorts, and opens his mouth to tell Connor just how cracked he's obviously become...then hesitates. _A bomb shelter_. Something stirs in the back of his skull, vague half-thought memories of plans, ideas -- new ones already forming. He turns them all over and over in his mind, looking at how the pieces fit together.

"All right."

o o o

The plans get drawn up over a weekend, in the reams of clean blue-lined paper leftover from school notebooks. Blueprints are all mostly in Murphy's hand, with bits of input from Connor.

Murphy tackles him awake 4:00 am, Monday morning, and sits on his back until he finally submits to rolling over and looking at the finished product. "What d'you say to that?" half-embarrassed pride coming out like roses in Murphy's face. "Pretty fuckin' nice, huh?"

Connor squints to make out the thick dark lines, like calligraphy, just barely illuminated by slivers of gray light peeking around their blinds (new ones, improvised blackouts made from a garbage bag). "Very fuckin' nice," he yawns. "Now get off me, ya heavy twat, and go to fuckin' bed."

They are magnificent plans -- innovative, elegant, laboriously detailed. Murphy had cussed and sweated and worked himself cross-eyed over them for ages, until they were honed to perfection. Architectural art.

In the end, Connor carves out lines in the earth with his boot heel, and they dig a hole. A big, fucking hole, shored up with scrap wood they cadge from here and there. The corners aren't even rightly squared.

When the first day's digging is done, they toss their shovels aside, and climb down to the bottom. Connor sits Indian-style and smokes, while Murphy lies on his back with his hands over his eyes. "All that work for this piece of shite," he groans. "Jesus, just fuckin' bury me here and end my sufferin', would ya? _Christ_."

"Hey, Lord's fuckin' name," Connor smacks him on the side of the head. "And quit your bitching. This is just the first stage of construction."

"It's a bloody pit!" Murphy protests, rubs his ear indignantly, then dutifully crosses himself and mutters, "Hail Mary, full o' grace."

And there's that look again, Connor shaking his head and eyes saying: _you are a fucking idiot_. "Right now, maybe," he takes a deep drag, exhales it out his nose, then holds the fag to Murphy's lips for a puff. "Have a little vision, Murph. Rome wasn't built in a day, y'know."

Murphy blows smoke rings, and bares his teeth, savage ironic grin. "Hail, Caesar."

o o o

More planning, more digging. Always more. Digging is the pattern to their days, carries them through the end of summer and straight on into September. Rain softens things, makes the work go easier, but filthy -- truth in metaphor if ever there was.

All the time, Connor is weaving a scenario, thinking, incorporating. Feeds the machine with anything, television, newspapers. Books. He works systematically through the library's collection of sci-fi, conspiracy theory, and comes to roost in hard science, as Murphy could have predicted. The cool, clean lines of logic are Connor's internal railways.

The excess spills out of him, at night in their bedroom, after school and on weekends wet and shivering at the field. "Have to stay down in the shelter for the first week," he narrates over the shoveling, the dull sound of mud tossed onto grass. "We'll survive on water from underground streams, where it's safe. You can go a long while without food. Bobby Sands and the other boys in the H-Block did hunger strikes in '81, nothin' but water and salt for nine weeks at a go."

Murphy stares at him, paused to catch his breath. "Nine fuckin' weeks?!" he huffs, braced against his knees. "You'd be a fuckin' skeleton. No wonder Bobby died."

Connor shrugs. "We won't have to go that long," he wipes the sweat from his eyes. "We'll stockpile canned stuff before, and six days in, we can sneak out for a bit -- no more than a half hour, though, and we'll have to wash with Tide soap and water after, to clear off any radiation. You've gotta wait two weeks before it's all right to go up top for real."

Murphy grunts, vaguely pacified, and they go back to digging. The hole's getting impressive, more deep than big; tunneling down before it spreads out so the opening isn't too wide to cover up. A meter down is all they needed, but Connor says they should make it at least four. "It's a bloody nuclear detonation," he says. "I don't know about you, but I want all the protection I can fuckin' get between my arse and that blast."

They've got blisters over blisters on their hands, fingers always bleeding and bandaged. Teachers think it's from fighting. Ma knows it's because they're half idiot and all crazy, and leaves it at that.

Every night, they fall onto their beds aching and exhausted. Murphy drifts in and out, dreaming in words and Connor's murmuring, the new lullaby to go alongside the familiar pinging from the radiator. Connor always knows where he left off last. Always remembers, even when Murphy loses the thread. "They say it's only a matter of time," he says. "There's too many bombs out there to keep track of, and one day, somebody'll drop one. Then it'll go like dominoes."

He's always got the answer, whatever question Murphy brings up. "What about babies?" he asks, breath steaming in clouds of silver October twilight. "I mean, if almost everybody's dead, who's gonna do the repopulating, like?"

Connor is quiet a minute, thinking. "There'll be other survivors, and they won't all go sterile. But we should probably take a girl with us, just in case."

"What, only one?" Murphy's voice cracks; a boy at school showed them a deck of cards with naked women on them, and it was almost as big an epiphany as _Mad Max_.

"Aye, don't want to overstrain our resources. But don't worry," Connor slaps him on the back. "I'll share her with ya."

"Fuck you, gee-bag," Murphy snaps. "Who says _I_ won't be sharin' her with _you_?" Connor's reply is a smirk, and one smug raised eyebrow.

Murphy's is a fist.

Afterward, they sit in the grass, water soaking through their jeans, and share a cigarette. They'll only have to re-dig a little, where Connor beat Murphy's head against one of the shelter's sides and collapsed it a bit. "So which girl d'you think we should bring?" Murphy asks, one eye already purple and swelling. Connor's got blood still trickling out his nose, spattered on his old, holey white tee-shirt. "Marie Doyle's got great knobs."

"Yeah, and the personality of a kick in the bollocks," Connor rubs dirt out of his hair, staring off at a sky dark and gray as smudged pencil. "We'll take Brigid."

Murphy inhales a bit of ash to go with his surprise. "Brigid?" he chokes, eyes watering. "You can't pick her, ya crazy bastard, she's our fuckin' _cousin_! You want babies with two heads?"

Brigid is one of Ma's five sisters' kids, and a year older than them, with long curly hair and freckles. Mad as the rest of their family, but good for a laugh, and she'd always been nice to them. Connor's never said, but Murphy knows he's had a thing for her since she danced with him at a bonfire over the summer.

"You've gotta be closer than cousins for that to happen, idiot," Connor says with no hesitation, like already he's thought it all through (which of course he has). "You'd have to fuck your sister."

"Oh," is all Murphy can think to say.

Connor nods, sucks deep on the cigarette's last drag. "Nobody'll care, once the bomb hits. Gene pool's going to shrink to nothin', and everyone'll be related to everyone else in a generation," blows the smoke out in a great huff, breath and tobacco clouded white. "Blood won't matter, not like that," he tosses the butt down, and grinds it into the mud with his heel. His hands are shaky, probably from cold, but maybe something else as well. Maybe he isn't as convinced as all that either.

But it's probably just the cold. Murphy starts to say something, then thinks better of it. Brigid danced with him, too, after all.

"I guess she'd be all right," he says. Remembers she smelled warm like apple cider, and her breasts felt heavy and soft, accidentally brushing against him when she laughed. His stomach clenches a little. Yeah, Brigid would be all right.

Connor's smile says he knows exactly what he's thinking. "C'mon, back at it now. I'm freezin' my arse off, just sittin' around, and we've still got over two meters left to go."

o o o

By November, the ground is hardened to ice, and it's too fucking cold to go out and chip at it anyway. They haul a rotted barn door down from the old rubbish heap outside town, drag it across the opening to keep anyone from noticing it (or falling in). "You think the bomb'll come before spring?" Murphy asks on the walk home, teeth chattering. The wind's like straight razors.

"Nah," Connor has his hands tucked into his armpits, trying to keep warm. "Too bloody cold."

Plans go into hibernation, with Advent and Christmas and New Year's all bursting through the door at once. Half their lives are spent at Mass -- the other half shoveling snow, numb-fingered and ice-bollocked. 'Tis the season, fa la la. The whole family comes together Christmas Eve for a big piss-up, and Connor goes beet red caught under the mistletoe with Brigid, then spends the rest of the night grinning like an idiot.

Murphy spends the rest of the night poking fun at him for it and running for his life.

Thaw comes late that year. Murphy doesn't notice the first shift of winter to spring, since each day still feels cold enough to freeze a brass monkey's cock off, but Connor smells it coming like a bloodhound. It wakes him, that exact moment's change, and he immediately goes and shoves Murphy out of bed. "Come on," he says, while Murphy is still sitting on the floor, blinking up at him. "It's time."

It's not even light out yet.

Murphy doesn't need anymore explanation, though. "All right," he mumbles, pulling his jeans on over his pajamas. "Lemme find my boots."

The walk is glacial, and new frost crunches under their feet with each step. Murphy wakes up halfway there, and is chattering and excited in no time, dancing around to warm up. "We should put in a real door," he says. "With hinges, and a padlock. And a rope ladder! I about broke my fuckin' neck, climbin' down in last time."

But they get to the field, and the barn door is smashed to pieces, piled in a heap. There's no giant mound of dirt anymore. There's no hole.

Connor searches the ground with his torch, finds a soft patch where the grass hasn't grown back and the soil's loose. Horror squeezes the air from their bodies, invisible arctic boa constrictor. It's the unthinkable, the completely unexpected dropkick to the balls -- someone's filled in their shelter. All their months of work are buried now, gone.

They'll have to do everything all over again.

"Fuckin' bastards!" Connor roars at the empty air, shaking with useless rage. Tears leak down his face, and he grabs hold and hurls the broken pieces of door. "I'll fuckin' kill every last one of ya motherfuckers!"

Murphy sinks onto his arse, hard enough to bruise, hardly feeling it. Ruined. It's all ruined. Each heartbeat feels like it's pumping glass, the word like an open wound: _ruined_. He thinks of calligraphy blueprints, fastened to their ceiling with Batman stickers, and puts his head on his knees and starts to cry.

This is the end of their second, real shelter.

o o o

The third and last is thirteen years late. It's not their own construction, though, so it isn't quite the same.

Smecker does his magic at the top, to make them disappear as best he can, and the detectives work ground level to cover their asses, but it's an uphill battle. When you kill a Mafioso in the middle of a courtroom -- broad daylight on camera -- turns out everybody pays attention. And everybody remembers your fucking face.

Il Duce (hard to think of him as Da yet) wants to hit the Big Apple, carve out its rotten core and the worms that feed on it. Connor would rather vanish into the desert a little while, Nevada maybe, but he's willing to let the old man have his way. This time at least.

Murphy, as usual, makes the best of whatever shite sandwich is handed to him today, and is carefully without opinion.

Eyes on the prize, but they stall out somewhere in farmlands, New York the state that does not resemble New York the city in any way except there's oxygen. Maybe the secret of fire, if they're lucky.

Good or bad, it's hard to say, but luck would have it, Duffy's got a crazy old uncle in a nursing home, whose property is close by. Il Duce and Connor are vibrating with ready tension, locked and loaded, waiting for a sign. Murphy plays odd man out once again, by feeling a queer...relief almost, to be out in the countryside again. Like it's the first time he's taken a breath in donkey's years.

Quiet land, pocked by ramshackle petrol stations and towns straight out of Norman Rockwell. Quiet enough to fuck up, monumentally. They forget even Rockwell had television, let their guards slip a moment, just the tiniest bit -- but it's all that's needed to turn everything arseways again.

Just a stop for gas, hundred others before it. But this time there's a clerk with an eye for America's Most Wanted, and a .44 under the counter. And however long it takes to stitch things together, it's only a second for it all to come undone.

Outside, it storms like biblical times, coming down in fucking buckets, and rain drums a hard cadence on the tin roof. Drowns out the tinier sound of hammer, cocked back.

Il Duce takes a bullet in the gut, the clerk takes it threefold. Murphy doesn't want to abandon their Da, but Connor drags him screaming away, shoves him into the rust-bucket Dolly gave them and drives off just before the two-bulbs come screeching in. One turns out to be an ambulance instead, Christ be praised. Murphy watches in the rearview mirror 'til it's just swirling blue and red flickers, like fairy lights. His ears are still ringing from gunshots when they pull into the uncle's place.

Connor has to wrestle him from the car, rain pouring inside through the open passenger door.

"Fuck you! I'm not goin' anywhere with you, ya fuckin' traitor," Murphy spits, eyes red-rimmed and wet still, and slaps Connor when he reaches for him. "I can't believe you LEFT him there -- your own fuckin' flesh an' blood! Just fuckin' ran away and abandoned him! How could you do that? Fuckin' pussy motherfucker!"

Connor presses his mouth into an angry line, but doesn't say anything, just reaches out for him again. Murphy slugs him in the face. And that is the end of patience.

Thunder rattles the windows around them, but they fight it out in deadly quiet. Replay of a thousand times before, gone rabid -- closed fists, knees-to-bollocks, and blood spatter, played out for real this time. Their boots squeak against the wet rubber mats, locked vicious scrabbling with each other, and Connor gets Murphy in a chokehold, squeezing 'til black supernovas burst in front of his eyes.

"Let go! Fuckin' coward!" he gasps, blood throbbing in his brain, lips tingling from no air. Fucking _strangling_.

Murphy panics, bangs into the dash wrenching free, and scrambles to kick him away. But Connor is faster, grabs onto his legs and yanks him out into the mud, gets astride him in one quick go -- punches Murphy in the ear until he quits struggling. "You think I wanted t' do it, ya stupid fucker?!" Connor bellows at him. "We couldn't fix him! He needed a _real_ doctor, not a fuckin' first aid kit, d'you understand that? We would've lost him, he woulda fuckin' DIED!"

"We fuckin' left him alone," Murphy chokes, tears and rain washing streaks through the blood covering his face, and Connor lets up enough he can roll onto his stomach and vomit into the mud.

"C'mon," Connor's voice is hoarse from yelling, soft now, as he grabs Murphy under the arms and hauls him to his feet; leans him up against the Buick, to go rifle in the boot for a torch.

Then it's off for a miserable, soggy hunt.

They're soaked to skin when they finally locate the little concrete slab with a hatch in the middle. There's no house on the uncle's property, only overgrown blackberry bushes, and this. Duffy's crazy fucking uncle.

The hinges are tight, rusted. Connor grunts with effort, prying it open. There's a shaft leading down, down, into gloom and technology, and the metal ladder rungs are slippery in their rain-slick hands. Murphy slips, accidentally boots him in the forehead, but Connor catches him anyhow. Always has.

Both of them have to pitch in, pulling the hatch shut again by a long, dangling chain. The muscles in their arms shake and strain taut, clean lines in their wet tee-shirts, like logic, like the inside of Connor's head. He slides his hands over the wall 'til he finds the light switch, clumsily flips it on. The generator rumbles to life, and ancient, dusty fluorescents flicker, on-off-on-off-on, holding steady.

He and Murphy blink like cave dwellers in the brutal light, squint and grumble while their eyes adjust. Then they get their first look, and spend the next few seconds just staring.

A real live bomb shelter.

Fucking unreal.

o o o

Inside is the 1970's trailer time forgot. Tiny, dingy living room with orange shag carpet layered over cement, fake wood paneling, and an ugly convertible sofa. Tiny, dingy kitchen all in yellows and olives. What'd probably be an even tinier, dingy bathroom off one side of a tiny, dingy hall, and hopefully not-so-tiny provision room off the other. "Jesus," Connor swipes water out of his eyes. "S' like bein' back at Rocco's. Minus beer."

Murphy brushes past him without comment, to wash his mouth out at the kitchen sink. Tap still works, fed by a well. Underground water was safe. Everything was safe underground.

When he finishes, Connor's there, waiting with a towel. "Dry off," he says, and tosses it to him. "You look like a drowned fuckin' rat."

" 'Least I don't have a face like King Kong's arse," Murphy mutters into threadbare terrycloth, peeks at his brother over the fibers.

Sopping wet and beat to shite, Connor looks as he always does, like one of those pretty-boy Calvin Klein ads. His hair's damp, rubbed into spikes by his own drying. The orange-y glow from a nearby ginger jar lamp catches on drops of rain, still clinging to his eyelashes, his neck -- his split lip, identical to Murphy's.

Murphy turns away, grips the mustard yellow countertop. White knuckles. "What are we gonna do about Da?" he's Da now, tonight, a hale of gunfire makes the connection real, makes the name fit. It's hard to know what you never had, 'til it gets dragged from you again, bleeding rivers.

"Wait a few days," Connor sits against the little kitchen table, and folds his arms. "Then we take him from the hospital."

If he doesn't die. Part of those days will be spent monitoring the radio, listening to news. Listening for space going empty. He knows. Murphy fidgets, rummaging through drawers, poking around. Trying to ignore the prickling in his skin; eyes that track his nervous movements, dead silence filled with waiting.

The lights buzz overhead, big electric insects. His ear feels like it's full of water or something; he rubs it, too hard, and the dull ache spikes bright bursting pain. "Ow, fuckin' Christ," he clutches the whole side of his head and curls in on himself, animal wounded. The hurt makes him go dizzy, sick to his stomach. "Son of a bitch. I think you busted my fuckin' eardrum."

A flicker of something like guilt, gray over blue in his eyes, twitch in the corner of his mouth. Then Connor heaves a sigh and shoves off the table, comes to his brother like the needle to North. "All right, let's have a look," already grabbing his jaw and pulling his head up, steady, to peer inside the canal. Murphy holds his breath, and squeezes his eyes shut, so Connor won't see them watering. "Well, I don't see anything hangin' out or leakin', which is good," he pats Murphy's cheek, gruff-tender and as close to an apology as either of them ever come. "You'll be fine."

 _Da's been fucking shot, there's nothing fine about us_. Murphy doesn't say it.

Quiet as a grave, big fucking underground trailer kind of grave. Spookiness runs shivers down his spine, and Connor feels it, too, because he goes and switches the radio on. Tunes it to a rock station, catching the tail end of an old Eric Clapton song.

Neither of them really says anything after. Connor walks over to the sofa, and Murphy follows wordlessly to help unfold it. They pull off their shoes and wet socks, and Connor's shirt rides up in back, reveals a strip of tawny skin and great, purple bruises like orchids along his spine. Murphy catches himself staring, and looks away. Touches his own neck, imprinted with the shape of a forearm.

They sleep back-to-back, like when they were four and shared a bed on the dirty yellow linoleum in the kitchen. Murphy dozes on and off. Mostly off, listening to the Police sing about not standing so close and to Connor's breathing, slow and even. There's a queer, tense feeling in his belly -- probably his ear making him queasy, aching like a motherfucker as it is.

The feeling crawls up into his throat, and he's afraid a moment he'll be sick again, but then it's words that come out instead of vomit. "Connor?"

Long pause, like he's asleep maybe and isn't going to answer. Then: "Yeah?" wide awake, probably has been the whole time. Bastard.

"Would you still've gone, if it'd been me instead of Da?"

Connor raises up on his elbows, shifts mattress under them, and nearly rolls them both to the center, where the springs are broken. Murphy can feel his eyes through the dark. "Would you, if it was me?"

 _Not ever. Would never, never leave you behind_.

Murphy wrinkles his forehead. " 'Course not, gee-bag," cranky slipping into his voice, which makes him crankier still because he hates it, but the answer's so fucking obvious, he's suspicious Connor is tricking him somehow.

"Well, there you go. All right?" Connor smashes his pillow down, as if it could go any flatter, then flops back against it. "Now quit bloody worryin' about nothing, an' go to sleep."

End of discussion.

The Ramones come on, and Murphy breathes when their shoulders are butting together again, reaches inside the collar of his tee-shirt to grip his rosary, warm and familiar worn-smooth. He wants to be sedated, too.

o o o

Connor yanks the cover off Murphy to wake him, shoves a cup of coffee into his hands before his eyes are hardly open. "Morning, buttercup," he smirks and ruffles Murphy's hair, like it isn't already stuck out every which way, then wanders off to the kitchen. "How ya want your egg done, shitehawk?"

'Buttercup' to 'shitehawk' in less than thirty seconds. Anyone but them, it might be a record. Murphy winces, stiff and tight-skinned and sore all over; his face feels swollen, probably looks worse. "Not hungry," he croaks, careful not to reopen his cut lip. The thought of food has his insides doing calisthenics.

"Scrambled it is, then," Connor cracks a pan's worth of eggs, one-handed, mixes them with milk and salt, and stirs them with an old, bent fork. The sizzling sounds like rain, or static.

The smell curdles Murphy's stomach. He swallows, hard. "Said I don't fuckin' want any," looking at his reflection in the coffee. Black and blue, in shades of espresso. "Where'd you get 'em from anyhow?"

Radio's still on, Echo and the Bunnymen's cover of an old Doors' song. Connor hums along under his breath while he cooks. "Duffy sent a cousin 'round with supplies. Fresh off his farm, enough to go a week or more," without warning, Connor drops a plate of eggs in Murphy's lap. "Now eat up. Don't want you pullin' a Bobby Sands."

 _Bobby Sands_. Something about it tugs at Murphy's brain, but he doesn't remember why. He pushes food around his plate, and nurses the coffee. "Any word?" gestures to the radio.

Connor shakes his head, perched on the kitchen table, barefoot and balancing a plate of his own on his knees. "Not a peep," patches of his face are livid, swirling violet and banded with bluebell; it's distracting, near to psychedelic. "But I'm sure we'll get an earful soon enough. Place this size, catching Il Duce'll be big news."

"It's 'Da', Connor," Murphy chides softly.

"I know what his fuckin' name is," Connor dumps his plate on the table too hard, clatter like a thunderbolt.

Agitation is electric from him, infectious; he and Murphy get up simultaneously to pace, and run smack into one another. Connor doesn't pull away, standing almost on top of Murphy, and looks into his eyes as if he can see the thoughts behind them. Murphy's uneasy feeling in his gut slithers back, up his spine.

It's a funny relief when Connor turns and grabs his boots, doesn't even bother with socks before stuffing his feet inside. "Where're you goin'?"

He shoves the laces into the boots, untied. "Up top. You," he jabs a finger at Murphy. "Are to stay put."

"Fuck you! You're goin', I'm goin'," Murphy tries to shoulder his way past, but Connor holds him back. His hands feel cold, even through a layer of tee-shirt.

"Murphy," Connor says, and it's so quiet and reasonable, Murphy stops to listen. "If they catch both of us, we're all fucked, you an' me an' Da. Ya understand? I need you to stay down here where it's safe -- just in case -- or else there'll be nobody t' break me out. One of us has t' keep on the outside. All right?"

As ever, Connor's cool, clean logic boxes Murphy in. Agreement is bitter on his tongue. "All right," he mutters, yanks out of his brother's grasp as if kindness burns him, sits heavy in his chest. "But make it quick."

 _Don't leave me to wait for you_.

"Aye, I will," he promises, and then vanishes.

It's a lie. Eons pass in the time he's gone, which seems like for fucking ever, but might be five minutes. Murphy can't be certain. So maybe it isn't a lie. Maybe it's just relative.

There's no real sense of time in the shelter, with no windows. Soundproofed, so you can't hear anything of the world above, birds or crickets. Could be morning, noon, or night, for all you can tell. Murphy has only the radio, and they won't say the time, because he wants them to and that's how it works. He stretches out upside-down on the rickety convertible, with his head hanging off the edge, and wishes he had a watch.

He doesn't realize he's been asleep 'til the packet of fags lands on his chest, and wakes him. "Miss me?" Connor grins. Fresh air has obviously put him in a better mood.

Not that Murphy would know. Twat. He grabs the cigarettes, and holds them up in scowling disbelief. "You went to a fuckin' _store_?" he cries. "Jesus Christ!"

"Lord's name, Murph, and don't be an idiot," Connor is cheery, plucking a cigarette from the pack, and nudging it between his lips; his mood is bombproof. "Those are from the car, same as --" he reaches both hands into the waist of his jeans, no warning; Murphy jumps, thousands of things screaming in his head and him too startled to articulate a one, but it's for nothing anyway because all Connor pulls out are their guns. "-- these fine fellows," he drops Murphy's onto the mattress, then catches his look. "What?"

Fucking what. The inside of Murphy's mouth has turned to sand. "Nothin'," he says, too hoarse, clears his throat. "Took ya bloody long enough."

Connor flips him his middle finger, and goes to the table, already dismantling his weapon. Cleaning is part of the ritual, sacred instinct now. Checking over and wiping down and oiling, touching with devotion, with love, as deserved by hallowed instruments of the sacrament. The smell of gunpowder is holy incense.

Murphy doesn't think about why he isn't laying a finger on his own gun, how inviting and body-warmed it would feel in his hand. Fear is a cold wash down his neck.

In the back of his head, he knows Connor came back in exactly thirty minutes or less.

o o o

They have cheese sandwiches for dinner, no matter what time it might be outside. An ice age later, Connor heats a tin of tomato soup, and that is supper.

Everything between these events is made up with empty space, the radio for a soundtrack, Connor switching it between news and music at random intervals. Murphy spends most of it sleeping, so bored it's a living thing, breathing up all his oxygen and sapping him of the will to move. Connor is utterly useless, lost inside a dusty crate of conspiracy pamphlets and science texts he found in the supply room.

Prison would be like this. _Only no Connor curled up at the foot of his bed and reading, no Connor at all_. He wakes in a cold sweat, heartbeat throbbing through his whole body. Connor's at the stove, stirring with a look of great concentration. Give him an apron, and he'd be Donna bloody Reed. "Soup's almost ready," he says without turning his head. Connor always knows when he's awake.

They eat at the table, civilized-like. Murphy picks more than eats anything, while Connor foists water on him like it's liquid rainbows. "That's it," he says, after the third unasked refill. "What're ya tryin' to do, drown me slow? My back teeth are fuckin' floating."

"Well, you've gotta have something," Connor's upbeat shell starts to crack, irritation seeping through. "Since apparently you've decided t' play at bloody Gandhi, starvin' your way to enlightenment."

Murphy flares up, sudden as grass fire, voice rising on each word 'til he's shouting. "Oy, don't you mean Bobby fuckin' Sands?" Murphy's stomach clenches around the name, and he feels himself sweating, shaking all over.

Connor just sits and watches him, patient-eyed. It's so maddening, Murphy chucks his spoon at his head, and thunders off, locks himself in the toilet like an angry teenage girl. Listens for footsteps pounding on his heels, Connor to come banging on the door and swearing at him. But there's only the sound of water dripping, his panting breath.

"Shite," he mutters to his reflection.

His temper's burnt itself out for now, fed from nothing. It leaves only tension behind, dark and honed in its ashes, and the cold sinking in his belly. Murphy can't make himself look at what that hole's been made around, so he peers into his own face instead, bruised as Connor's and pale. His whole body's trembling.

There's a water stain on the ceiling, shaped like the number nine. _Nine weeks went Bobby, Bobby and his nine Republican brothers_. Gives Murphy the creeps, so he looks away.

He fills the sink with icy water, dunks his head in, then watches the water run over his face like rain. His skin feels like it's humming. Things skitter and scurry like beetles, just under the surface of his thoughts. He doesn't want to examine those, either, but they're getting harder and harder to push down and ignore.

Jesus. He's got to get out of this fucking place.

Everything's spun slow and unreal, when Murphy emerges. His heart beats sluggish and loud, like a bass drum, his legs carrying him floating along. Connor hasn't moved from the table, sitting right as he had been. Waiting. The air is heavy and thick, and Murphy doesn't breathe or think, he just flows through like syrup. Water droplets still trickle down his skin from his hair, and soak his shirt.

He accidentally meets Connor's gaze, as he moves through the kitchen. His face is passive, smoothly blank; his eyes are dark as charcoal.

Something shifts, a weird feeling of greater meaning stirring to life -- weird, full stop. It twists in Murphy's chest, raises the hairs on his arms, and he lets his breath out in a burst. "I'm goin' out," he says, eyes dropped down. Walks quick past to the couch, his boots, with a stone growing in his gut, as the buzzing sense of 'just about to' rises up his spine.

Too late.

Connor tackles him from behind. It knocks him onto the floor, skidding on his belly. Murphy burns his knees and chin on the carpet, like when they were little, and it stings like a motherfucker, but it's good somehow, too. Pain means they're alive to feel it. Pain is a wake-up call. "What the fuck, man?!" he tries to wriggle out from under his brother, but Connor pins him down with his body (always just a hair stronger, a hair better). "Connor!"

"D'you hear that?" Connor's breath against his ear, the bad one. It tickles.

Murphy squirms, feels the cool of the cement leeching up, through the rug and his skin. Connor's hands are on his shoulders, pressing him down. "Hear what, ya crazy fucker?" he pants, open-mouthed, dry.

"The _bomb_."

Rush of color and image and sensation, memory clicking into place. Murphy's brain quiets, goes still, and the rest of him unconsciously follows.

He remembers. "The bomb," feel of a shovel in his hand, earth smell of the field strong, and Connor at the center, weaving in the dark.

"Aye," the smile reaches all the way to Connor's voice. "It's fuckin' Armageddon up there," he says and rolls him over with his knees, and Murphy goes pliable beneath him, lets Connor put him onto his back. Plays along. Just playing along, nothing else, he doesn't believe in Connor's games anymore, doesn't believe --

Connor slides down his belly, and a great spasm shudders all through Murphy, leaves him sick with want in its wake. "Fuck! Don't," he gasps, trying to twist so Connor won't feel him getting hard. "Knock it off, bastard!"

But Connor holds him in place, wrestles him still. "It's okay, Murph," he murmurs against his brother's jaw. "It's okay," his fingers are cool, slipping under tee-shirt to flushed skin, rapidly overheating. "It's only pretend."

Fairy-fire ripples over every inch of Murphy, head-to-feet with goosebumps chasing, burning cool and tingling. His struggles -- already halfhearted -- go weaker yet, and he thinks: _all right_. All right.

This isn't really happening. Connor is not pushing a leg between his, is not sinking his weight down into his hips, into Murphy's. Murphy certainly doesn't arch into it. This isn't the itch under his skin, this isn't his heart pounding, blood singing, it's so fucking right. That isn't the most blessed release he's ever felt in his whole life, the Holy Spirit throwing all the doors open inside him.

Blood doesn't matter, after the bomb is dropped.

In the kitchen, the Clash plays background over radio waves. London's calling, and it's only thing real that's going on.

Connor spins the scenario in whispers, body heat, in orange-y ginger jar light. "We'll learn to build traps an' hunt with knives, once it's safe t' go back up," he's got a hand between them, shoving Murphy's shirt out of the way, and slipping inside his jeans. "Won't be a lot of animals that survive, but there'll be some. We'll take what meat isn't too near bone, 'cause they're what holds the radiation, and use the skins for warmth."

Fingers brush the head of his cock. Murphy makes a sound deep in his throat, grips his brother's hair in fistfuls. "Can hardly wait t' get me in a loincloth, eh?"

"Only if it's over your fuckin' head," he snarls, bizarrely almost-normal. Then Connor runs his palm up the underside of Murphy's cock, gives it a squeeze, and 'normal' disappears under the swell of blood pounding behind his eyes, without a ripple.

It's Murphy who thinks to undo Connor's zipper, knocks hands with him unfastening his own. No more than that. There's rules even in pretending. Connor pushes Murphy's thighs apart, spreads them wide enough to fit his hips, and slides over the rest of the way between. It takes a moment to get the angle right, then the blunt tip of Connor's cock is sliding over his, and Murphy digs his fingers through denim into Connor's arse and hisses. "Jesus Christ!"

"Lord's name," Connor pants, buries his face in Murphy's neck, and grinds down.

 _Hail Mary, full of grace_.

They're both burning up, sweating, fumbling and thrusting against the other in a frenzy. Connor's breathing hard, day's growth of stubble catching on Murphy's collarbone, chafes it like the carpet does his back, his elbows, from their rocking. Pre-come has them slick as a whistle, cocks gliding slippery together. Murphy rubs up into Connor, faster, harder, feels him start to lose it. "Like that, don't you?" he says, and Connor grunts in response. "Yeah, you like that. So fuckin' hot, wet, you're fuckin' dripping for me, aren't ya?"

"Don't you ever shut your fuckin' hole?" Connor grits out, though he fully knows the answer, which is 'no'.

Murphy gives a breathless laugh, turns to a stifled yowl when Connor hits the sweet spot just under his cockhead. He's so fucking close, iron hard and throbbing, bollocks drawn up tight. Connor's braced on his palms, eyes screwed shut, and sucking in those little hitching gasps Murphy's been hearing from the bed across his since they were twelve.

Friction shoots little sparks of heat from their rubbing bellies, rubbing cocks. Murphy arches his back, pumping faster and faster against Connor, hard-on screaming and balls clenching, 'til finally the tension snaps. Murphy comes, bucking and spurting over himself; orgasm tears through him, like a freight train, bursting bright flashes of color in the fringe of his vision.

Connor pants something incoherent that's either encouragement or mockery, and doesn't break his stride, pistoning steady as an engine against his spasming brother. His face and neck are flushed red, mouth hanging open and tendons straining. Soon as Murphy regains the sense to, he slicks his hand through the mess on his stomach, and reaches down to grasp Connor's cock.

"Oh fuck, Murphy," Connor groans, and his voice cracks as Murphy fists him, strokes rough and quick.

The sound of it is near as obscene as the sight, but there's nobody else to see or hear, and they two are obviously beyond shame. Connor intently fucks himself on Murphy's hand, mumbling against his skin, muscles shaking with effort. Murphy curls his fingers loose around the head, and twists like he's opening a bottle, and that's it. Connor bites his shoulder through wet cotton, coming in great shudders, pulses.

He collapses on top of Murphy afterward, into a big, sticky heap. "Fuckin' cannibal sadist," Murphy wheezes without any rancor; Connor's feather light, compared to the weight it feels has been lifted from his body. "First ya bite me, then ya bloody squash me. Is there no end to the abuse?"

"Pussy," Connor plays the gentleman anyway, and rolls off to the side, then yanks him close for a hug that's almost an attack, crushing tight. Murphy squeezes back, just as fierce.

There is no bomb, but this isn't pretending, either. Scorched flesh instead of earth, branded by the mark of Abel, who loved the hand that slew him. This is apocalypse. This is the Rapture. This is the end of the world.

( _It's inevitable_ )

They lie tangled together in the quiet, letting the radio do their talking for them in the voice of Pink Floyd, comfortably numb as well. Connor smokes while Murphy dozes, warm and breathing his brother's smell, gunpowder and cigarettes, soap. This is as peaceful as it's been since Boston, before maybe.

Connor nudges him awake when the newsbreak comes on. "They're talkin' about last night," he explains, then shuts up so they can listen.

"...fatal incident at a local Texaco, resulting in the tragic death of forty-seven-year-old clerk, Torvald Andersen. Surveillance tapes reveal the assailants as three unidentified men, one of whom was wounded during the shooting. Authorities transported him to St. Jerome's ICU early this morning, where his condition is listed as 'stable'. Police have issued a statement that a search is ongoing for the two remaining fugitives, and they will be taken into custody shortly..."

It's a load of propaganda after that, reassuring the hysterical public that justice would be dealt out, post-haste. As if any of them would know _real_ justice, if it chased them down and gnawed off their arses. Murphy touches the tattoo on his hand, slivers of guilt blurring its edges, and thinks about Torvald Andersen, if he's included in the definition of 'real' justice.

He pushes the thought away, and clears his throat. It feels like something's caught in it. "Shitebrains haven't even figured out who Da is yet," he says, a strange mix of relief and contempt.

Connor has a flat, irritable expression. "They will, though," he takes a moody drag, blows the smoke out as he speaks. "And quick. Cops'll be swarmin' all over the place then, like bees in a fuckin' hive."

Murphy stares at him, suspicion prickling. "What are you sayin'?"

"I'm sayin' maybe we should make our move sooner rather than later, aye?" Connor finishes his fag, stubs it out in Murphy's coffee cup from earlier. "Tomorrow, say."

"You're fuckin' crazy," Murphy declares, but he really isn't that worked up about it. The sooner they get out of this fucking place, the better, in his book. He settles back down again, and lays his head in Connor's lap. Won't be much time for this when...when Da's there. Murphy sucks his lip, unsettled. "What's gonna happen? Y'know...after we get him back."

Connor thinks it over. Hesitates. Dread withers Murphy's insides. "Things'll have to be different," he says finally.

"Yeah?" tries to keep his voice bland, keep his heart from plummeting to his knees. _It's wrong, it's a sin against fucking God, and you know it. You have to stop._

He twitches when Connor's fingers brush over his cheek. "Yeah," Connor says, and it comes out soft, husky. "We'll hafta be more careful," slides his hand around to cup the back of Murphy's neck, gripping hard, possessive. "An' you hafta to be quieter next time."

Next time. Murphy tilts into Connor's grasp, and grins. "Think Ma still has our old blueprints?" he asks lightly.

Connor is a moment catching onto the subject change. "Oh! Oh, aye, she probably does," he plays along; his eyes sparkle, blue as the sea and twice as wicked. "Hafta ask her to mail 'em over, of course. Y'never know when somebody's finally gonna drop the bomb, after all."

There's all sorts of layers to inevitable. They won't talk about this, like they don't talk about how much they miss Rocco and home, or what's going to happen when one of them -- and it's not an if, it's a when -- is caught or killed. It's just another part of them that doesn't need a bunch of bloody explanations, because it's so fundamental, it's like sharing air and blood.

The weirdest thing about it is how weird it really doesn't seem.

Murphy thinks of _Mad Max_ , wonders what the movie would've been like if old Max had had a brother to navigate the post-apocalypse with. "Maybe we should give Brigid a ring, while we're at it," he says, and Connor gives him a sly smirk. Murphy tries to look innocent, but spoils it with a wink. "Y'know. Just in case."

o o o

 **Scenario** : How To Survive A Nuclear Explosion

Originally written 09/17/2005.


End file.
